Radio airplay charts remain relatively static following the 4th of July weekend and thus there is a lack of solid new material that people are talking about. It’s a great time for the stragglers to finally add “back to friends” by sombr (currently #2 on Spotify Global), “Dark Thoughts” by Lil Tecca or “Mystical Magical” by Benson Boone. All three remain in the Spotify Top 20 and get loads of requests, even with many stations still giving them little to no airplay. There is just one major story this week!
Drake – “What Did I Miss?”: Most Top 40 stations are usually late to rhythmic hits, despite obvious audience passion and consistently strong streaming numbers. Recent examples include “Timeless” by The Weeknd, “Dark Thoughts” by Lil Tecca, “NOKIA” and “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar, all of which hit #1 on Spotify and where they still remain in the Top 50.
“What Did I Miss?” is about how Drake feels many people have turned their back on him or tried to play both sides in his feud with Kendrick Lamar. While that beef isn’t necessarily “active” right now, it was one of the most talked-about pop culture events of 2024 and will easily peak interest anytime there’s something new. The track debuted #1 on Spotify this past Saturday upon release and is currently #3, behind two tracks from the “KPop Demon Hunters” soundtrack. It’s not good to be behind your core audience and in a month be the one asking “what did I miss?” or introducing it a month from now as “brand new Drake”.
Many of Drake’s big streaming hits haven’t aged well; some were #1 on the Hot 100 and even held the Top 10 for quite some time, but after six months nobody was talking about them. “Laugh Now Cry Later”, “Toosie Slide”, “You Broke My Heart”, “Way 2 Sexy”. “NOKIA” is truly his biggest hit in 5 years, and surely the only to generate big Liveline requests (in and out of the #1 spot for 10 weeks). This week it’s finally Top 10 on Pop radio airplay. What was the big holdup? His newest release is worthy of an add or at least being played for a few weeks, even just for the fact it’s Drake and the continuous Kendrick saga continues.
Buried Treasures of the Week:
Coldplay – “A Sky Full of Stars”: Quite a few of their tracks have been featured here, but what’s the surprise? They currently have 4 songs in Monday’s Spotify Top 200, all of which still get requests on Liveline. 2001’s “Sparks” (#53) and “Yellow” (#111), 2008’s “Viva La Vida” (#149) and 2017’s Chainsmokers collab “Something Just Like This” (#180), their most streamed song… They all have over 1.5 BILLION streams and Coldplay is the 6th most-listened-to artist globally right now. They sell out arenas and are the most successful band of the 21st century. Anything by them that was ever on the radio is now widely familiar and hot again. 2014’s “A Sky Full of Stars” only peaked at #13 on Pop radio and #10 on Billboard, but it’s a beautifully produced track with the assistance of Avicii and is now a staple at every one of their concerts, which by the way is the second highest-grossing tour of the 2020’s. Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” is #1.
Kid Cudi – “Day N Nite”: His 2009 debut single became the biggest hit of his career, peaking at #1 on Rhythmic and #3 on Billboard. Though it only reached #16 on Top 40, it went on to be a staple at every party and now one of our most-requested throwbacks on Liveline, specifically the Crookers remix. From that same album comes “Pursuit of Happiness” which was never that big upon release, only peaking at #59 on Billboard, but often re-enters the Spotify Top 200, and gets played at every party and club today in addition to David Guetta’s “Memories” which Cudi sings on, now his most-streamed song on Spotify with 1.1 billion streams. That one only peaked at #46 on Billboard, #22 on Top 40 and #17 on Rhythmic. All three are bangers and still popular today.
I had to giggle a bit at the part of Sean’s post from not that long ago about whether Top 40 will start playing rap again where he said something along the lines of “We needed them both [Kendrick and Drake].” Like, who are we kidding? Clearly the “we” in that quote does not include Top 40 programmers, who have rejected nearly every hit record by BOTH of these artists for years (or his entire career until recently, in Kendrick’s case). Okay, maybe I’m being a little unfair: every once in a while they’ll allow a Drake cut into sub-power for a few weeks, as we’re now seeing with “Nokia,” only to get dropped like a hot potato and not even briefly considered for the all-important recurrent rotation slots. In the case of “God’s Plan,” they didn’t even deign to do this until it was closing in on double-digit weeks effortlessly atop the Hot 100, i.e. essentially the same story as we recently saw with the inoffensive semi-sleepy (but good) ballad “Luther.” Alas, when it comes to rap artists who won’t get a shot to rebrand as “country” next album cycle, pointing out that it’s “still top 20 on Spotify” after months is so ho-hum; maybe if it’s still top 3 at that point they’ll maybe consider barely adding it. Until then, “I’d like to see that song help improve y’all’s OWN ratings!” (Translation: We’re not gonna play it. And STAY out!)
Every now and again I’ll make a way-too-optimistic comment on here like “haven’t heard [obvious hit song] on [Top 40 radio/any format of radio] yet but expect I will soon!!” only to be proven horribly wrong by the next time it gets mentioned in a column. In the case of “Nokia,” I have either heard it once to date on Top 40 or zero times — don’t remember which. I was expecting to start hearing “Love Me Not” on radio semi-imminently maybe a month ago and only heard it for the second time (first time outside of the syndicated Sunday evening iHeart show) over the Independence Day weekend, at some point in between the pre-recorded DJ mixshow sets that were identical on both Friday and Saturday. There is clearly still NO shame about hit songs being nowhere to be found on these stations until long after “here’s [artist]’s new one” will already seem laughable. Waiting as long as possible is apparently the winning strategy, I guess? Supposedly I am comfortably within the age demo for these stations (or even still “a little young,” depending who you ask), and I simply cannot imagine who is actually excited to hear music on stations assuming this programming philosophy. How is every NOT horrified at just how low things have sunk in the past 15 years?